Plus some fudge.
Working my way through the America’s Test Kitchen Best Ever Christmas Cookies, we have Maple-Pecan Swirls, Lemon Snowflakes, and Vanilla Icebox Cookies. These were shipped off to far-flung locales, and given as presents.
I enjoy a good vanilla icebox cookie. I liked the subtle flavor of the maple-pecan swirls and the lemon bite of the snowflakes.
The fudge was a bit crumbly, but still good.
This was a fun find in my mailbox. It is from my friend Laurie and came with a preprinted message.
Dear Friends—I had so much fun celebrating Central City Concern’s Grand Opening of the Starlight! These affordable homes are going to make a real difference in people’s lives. Portland is coming back! Come visit my town anytime—this is a special place!
I enjoyed both the promo of much needed deeply affordable and supportive housing, but also the whiff of desperation about Portland “coming back.”
Laurie noted that the canned message isn’t her message to me, but that she knows I love postcards and so since they were giving them out she sent me one.
A very fun day in my mailbox!
Sara sent this cute postcard that she found while shopping for Christmas gifts in downtown Arcata. This year, she and Shawn are visiting Newport for the holiday.
Fun discovery. While looking up the artist, I discovered that the company distributing the postcard is based in Portland, and their location is not far from my house. They have a lot of cute stuff, so check out their website.
This was a very fun sampler. I fell behind due to baby blanket construction and general holiday preparations, but here it is. Sadly, I photographed it without natural light, so the white looks a little yellow. Imagine that it’s old dress shirt white.
The stitches this time are:
This time, the idea was to practice on Aida cloth and then do the same stitches on normal cloth. I really liked the Dutch stitch on Aida—the repeating squares are super trippy. It was harder to pull of on normal fabric.
The big winner for me this time was threaded chain stitch. So easy to do and provides such a dramatic effect.
A backside, for those of you who like to see them.
There is one more sampler for 2022!
Postcards for episodes 4 and 5 arrived in the mail today!
Episode 4 is a Daniel Palladino episode and Ariel wasn’t a fan. Though she did enjoy Michelle Fanny interactions. She gave the episode 5.5/10 semi-stolen toe shoes.
And with Episode 5, we turn a corner. It’s the first episode she’s enjoyed the girls. This also had Fanny’s great Paper or Plastic ballet, which was hilarious. Both Ariel and I enjoyed it. Ariel gives this 6.5/10 psychotic check-out girl ballets.
My first two cards featured snowmen. That was a fun happenstance.
“Silver Bells” has long been my favorite Christmas Song. Many years have included singing as my aunt plays the piano accompniment. So it was nice to hear Booker T and the MGs rendition this morning.
The date on this magazine is December 5. Given that Christmas is 20 days after that date, I don’t think there is any real way to lose 2.4 pounds a day other than cutting off a limb, or maybe two. At least with amputation, that weight would stay off, unlike every single crash diet.
And, as usual, First for Women comes through with the ridiculous weight-loss claims and the elaborate dessert.
The Columbia Pool isn’t coming back, and that means I have a very long wait until the new aquatics center opens in 2029. But perhaps by attending ALL the meetings, the time will go by quickly. Today’s meeting involved wandering through the displays and giving feedback via post-it notes.
There were a variety of professional people to chat with. I learned from a swimming pool builder that Olympic sized swimming pools are very expensive to heat, and very large. There was a diagram showing that an Olympic size pool is bigger than Pioneer Square.
Knowing that, I could give the feedback that it wasn’t super important to have an Olympic sized swimming pool. Though I would like to swim in one at some point.
My coworker Sarah is due in February, so there is a baby shower on Thursday. I made this little blanket for the new parents.
I think this is the first baby blanket I have hand monogrammed and I’m quite pleased at both the chain stitch and how swoopy the C is. I did not draw the C, but I grabbed it from one of the alphabets I had squirreled away.
The theme of the party was Space Dinosaur Cowboy and I was trying for all three things, but JoAnn’s was not connecting me with any cowboy stuff. But I did like the stars and then the not-at-all concerned dinosaurs hanging out in the snow.
I ended up making the bias binding. When I do that, I always make extra because it’s a really mood killer to come up a few inches short of bias binding. (How do I know? Because I’ve done it.) But then what to do with the extra bias binding? I had the idea to poke two holes in the plain brown wrapping and make a bow with it.
